The Umbrella Academy S4E1 Review – a little promising but it feels like a slide downhill
The Umbrella Academy returns for the last season and let me do a quick take with The Umbrella Academy S4E1. Catch the Hargreeves siblings in their final season adventure on Netflix!
The Hargreeves are back for the fourth season and they are doing OK in this new reality or timeline that they ended up in from last season. Most of the characters are doing pretty OK with their lives considering we got a six year timeskip with some of them happier than before. Some are just optimistic but shitty and others are going through a rough patch. Episode 1 starts off in reminding us of how much dysfunction a big family unit is and that everybody changes. The tone and vibe for me for this first episode was promising especially since we’re trying to get back the team again in some contrived way.
The acting and the writing for this episode were so-so. It’s like whoever structured and designed the entire season forgot about where the characters are last season and also forgot about the mid-credit scenes teased at the end of The Umbrella Academy season 3.
Here’s an example.
Emmy Raver-Lampman’s Allison Hargreeves aka Rumor has been prattling on and on about her husband and daughter Claire who she had left behind in another timeline; that’s her motivating force, to be reunited with her family. For this season however, we barely see her talk about Ray and she’s having a hard time communicating with her now teenage daughter. I get that but the big issue is where is Ray? If he died off screen, why isn’t there even a line about that or some visuals? Another example of the “Araki Forgot” theory is the character of Sloane. Last season Tom Hopper’s Luther aka Number 1 aka Spaceboy was madly in love with her and by the end of the season 3, his main goal was the find Sloane and be happy with her. Now, he’s a stripper living aimlessly and only gets his happiness when his family gets together. What happened to the drama built up??
The cast were OK though, but it really feels like something is missing in this season. Even the recap didnt feel that happy at all. It didn’t even hype up what’s going to happen this season.
They really should have upped the stakes for this season, since it’s the last. Instead are we really just going to believe that their father, the most powerful man in this timeline, just let them go in peace and live their lives for six years? Wasn’t there any hint at all that they tried to fight back or return to their previous status quo? Are none of the siblings ultra pissed off for their “Father” screwing up their lives towards the end of season 3? Where is that? Where is that conflict?
The season also introduces new villains that may or may not be compelling in the form of Nick Offerman and Megan Mullaly. They got a good intro in this episode and they are able to switch from geeks to intimidating people at a drop of a hat. Hopefully they play to this strong point until the season finale. If not, it would be a waste of Offerman’s talents.
And while I really enjoyed The Umbrella Academy Season 4 Episode 1 on face value, the deeper stuff, the ones that got me invested in the show was either swept away, buried or completely forgotten. All those juicy potential moments all wiped out with the help of our dear plot friend “Timeskip”.
We are also not treated to a dance off of sorts in the first episode. I was looking forward to that.
Tonally and narratively you can see how different the past seasons were compared to season 4. All the things that we loved about it (excluding the violence because that is still in this season) could be gone or have not yet materialized but I really feel like this isn’t going to end well or sit well with fans or both the comic book by Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba or the past few seasons of the show.
The Umbrella Academy Season 4 is now streaming on Netflix and stars Elliot Page, Tom Hopper, David Castañeda, Emmy Raver-Lampman, Robert Sheehan, Aidan Gallagher, Justin H. Min, Colm Feore, Ritu Arya,
